Crews testing Milwaukee's streetcar on Monday

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MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Running a streetcar service in a city like Milwaukee takes more than just buying the cars and hiring a few drivers.

On Friday, the City of Milwaukee gave CBS 58's Brendan Cullerton a preview of how the new Hop operation is going to work.

The first streetcar will be on 4th and St. Paul Monday for testing. It will go down to Plankinton Avenue. On Friday, crews were testing the car indoors.

Workers are still perfecting the internal systems for the first Milwaukee streetcar.

Project manager Darryll Simpson says starting Monday cars will go through what's called a "burn in process," or more than 600 miles of test runs without passengers.

"What we're looking for is failure. If we have no failures during that 1,000 miles then that's what we're looking for and I'm pretty sure we're going to get that. Now if we do, it doesn't mean that the world collapses, it just means we have to now start to test all over again and find out why we had a failure," said Transdev General Manager Darryll Simpson.

Rides will be free for a year because of a donation from Potawatomi. CEO Rodney Ferguson says he's ready to see it in action.

"So exciting. I mean just to see the excitement from the other folks that we're there as well. It knows that the process is working, how the trains have been being built," said Ferguson.

Simpson says they'll be one step closer to getting passengers in the cars after Monday's test.

Traffic will be limited in the area during the test on Monday as the tracks will be fenced off.

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MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Get a behind the scenes look as Milwaukee’s first streetcar vehicle is being prepared for on-street testing next week